Shadowbox jewelry box

This project was previously featured on the Breathe Magazine blog and can be found by clicking here. There are extra thoughts found on the first post that won’t make it into today’s, so definitely check it out!

Just like any (or at least, MOST) girls, I love pretty things. I gravitate towards sparkle, color and delicate details, so it’s no wonder that my jewelry holds a special place in my heart. I hardly ever leave the house without a pair of drop earrings and a long chain necklace to match my ensemble – Heck, I’ve even been known to don something sparkly over a t-shirt and jeans before heading to the grocery store.

Because I love my jewelry, I’ve spent a lot of time and effort to make sure I display the collection in a proud way – You’ve seen me talk about my earring organizer, my necklace organizer and even my odds-and-ends jewelry box. Each project was meant to bring just a touch more oomph to my collection.

Today, I’m sharing a “New Use for an Old Thing” trick that I learned and decided to try out on my own. You might remember my chevron jewelry box, which I made and chatted about over here.

Well, as you can see in the pulled out drawers below, I had a lot of stuff packed into that little wooden box. We’ve got bracelets, broken necklaces that I still need to repair, rings and a bunch of post-style earrings that won’t properly hang on my dangly earring organizer.

At some point a few months ago, I reaped a little online inspiration from one of my daily blogging reads, Jess Constable of Make Under My Life. She was chatting about how she stores her accessories (things like scarves, jewelry, etc.) – One brilliant solution she mentioned was to use a shadowbox to hold post earrings. This idea was the lightbulb moment I had been waiting for.

I hardly ever wear my small collection of post earrings because they are all buried at the bottom of my jewelry box’s tiny drawers. I knew if I had them out on display like the rest of my collection that I would be far more likely to use them, but couldn’t for the life of me think of how to get them out in the open without losing them. But this new thought was precisely what I needed to hear.

Luckily, this project cost me no money at all since I already had a shadowbox on hand that I didn’t mind dismantling. So I grabbed my vacation-themed frame and carefully removed all of the fixings. After that, it was just a matter of digging out my post earrings, removing the backs and sinking them into the soft foam core backing inside the shadowbox – Think of them like decorative, dainty push pins going into cork board and you’ll get the gist of the process. For the loose backs, I tucked those into a little palm-size canvas drawstring bag I had and now keep in one of the vanity drawers for easy access.

Granted, my collection is a little sad…But I was also able to fill in with pretty antique pins that I have collected over the years from estate sales. I’m hoping that I’ll start gravitating more often towards these tiny pieces of jewelry since I’ve become a bit obsessed with chunky pieces as of late. It’s high time I switch things up.

I ended up popping it up on the wall beside my bathroom sink within easy reach. Since my shadowbox has a “front-door-like” loading system where you just swing the glass panel back on hinges to access the inside, I can easily get to a pair of earrings or pin whenever I want.

As I mentioned in my Breathe Magazine blog post (again, check that out here), I would recommend getting a front-loading shadowbox if you want to try this out at home. If you use a back-loading frame, then you’ll have to take it off the wall each time you want something and that might get old after a while.

Emma -I took apart a metal frame that was decorated with leaves and replaced the center with chicken wire. I hang all my studs on that, and I have a larger free standing holder designed for earring where all my larger ones are stored.ReplyCancel